In Sweden, as in many other countries in the world, there has been a massive shift in (higher) education towards distance education and online teaching. In the midst of this, some universities introduce and use telepresence robots. A telepresence robot provides a virtual presence – or a bodiless presence – to, for example, a remote student who cannot physically attend the classroom. The overall aim of this paper is to explore dimensions of corporeality and hyperreality in digitalized education. More specifically, the focus will be on the research question - how can embodiment and presence be understood when the students are situated, and their participation are mediated, through telepresence robots? The philosophies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (see e.g. 1968, 1996) and Martin Heidegger (see e.g. 2001) will be used to analyze the complexity of corporeality and hyperreality in digitalized education. Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the lived body supports the analysis of the bodily presence in the room, whereas the Heideggerian ideas and concepts provide entries for an ontological understanding of the relational and spatio-temporal aspects of ‘Being-one’s-Self’ and what ‘Being-there’-with as well as the ‘Being-there’-with-of-Others might mean to students in digitized education. 

References:

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968): The Visible and the Invisible. Northwestern University Press. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1996): Phenomenology of Perception. Motilal Banarsidass Publisher. Heidegger, M. (2001): Heidegger Studies. Duncker & Humblot GmbH.